Title: viewfinder
Prompt: sea-roads and earth-roads you travelled once
Character/Pairing: Saeran, V, Seven (Saeyoung)
A/N: I haven't finished his route yet beyond Day 7 but this was inspired by the flashback of V wanting to take Saeran out on a trip. This is probably post the original after story
Summary: Everything had shattered with that first broken promise: I will stay.
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Saeran brought the viewfinder to his eye. The world seemed so much smaller, so much clearer through the lens. Even the imperfections were sharper. He half-pressed the camera button, waiting for the focus triggers to appear on the screen.
The flower swayed through the breeze and he took the shot.
-x-
"For the record, I don't think this is a good idea," Saeyoung said. Or was it Luciel or Seven who said it? Saeran wasn't quite sure what identity his brother went by now.
Wasn't sure who his brother was. But that was fine, he didn't know himself either.
"I'm…I'm still going," Saeran answered, his voice still cracking in places. His fingers tapped his thigh impatiently. The room felt too small sometimes, cluttered with his brother's computers and gear. There were no windows in his apartment and it wasn't too hard to imagine he was still trapped in his mother's home.
Her voice whispered in his ear and he shook his head.
"Yeah, I know. I think you need this too." His brother smiled bitterly, like the coffee Saeran had on one too many all-nighters. He got up from his chair, toward a pile of boxes in the corner. Rooting around in one, he pulled out a camera. "You can use this."
Gingerly, Saeran took it from his brother's outstretched hands. A zoom-in lens, a flash attachment, the label for each part sprung to his mind as he turned the camera over in his hands.
"Just…show me the pictures when you come back."
Come back. To think he would hear those words and actually look forward to it. "Sure."
-x-
It was still slightly off season for hikers. Saeran breathed onto his hands, trying to warm them up as he set up his tent. He should have packed gloves. The spring was cold this year, with small patches of snow still lingering on the ground. At least the tent wasn't complicated to set up—his brother had bought the simplest one he could find.
The only problem was the earth. It was hard, unyielding, and every time he hit the wooden peg in, jolts ran up his arm. Would it have been like this if V had taken him on that trip? Off the beaten path, in places few dared to thread.
You can be my assistant, he had said. A photography trip, just the two of us.
It had been a small light of hope Saeran had nurtured. In the dark hours, when he huddled in a corner of his house, he had dreamed and dreamed of a bright blue sky, of flowers and the click click click of a camera.
But then the elixir burned down his throat and that dream was snuffed out.
-x-
You made it there ok?
-x-
It was V's camera. That much he knew. It was V's camera and when he had first held it, he had wanted to drop it like it was burning. Maybe it was burning, his skin felt hot from where he touched it. He remembered V giving lessons when they were younger, when he was just Saeran and his brother was just Saeyoung and V was just a nice boy who helped him out.
And now he had too many identities and his brother had none. And V, V was dead and there was no one to take his anger out at, no one to blame. Even Rika, for all of her awareness, might as well be dead.
The camera was just a tool, he told himself, forcing his fingers to grip the body. Just a tool, nothing more, nothing less.
(You're a tool, Rika had told him once, to be used and discarded.)
(And maybe he and this camera had more in common than he thought)
-x-
It's been a few days, are you ok?
-x-
He remembered a picture Saeyoung showed him once. A daffodil, rising to the sun. A valiant flower rising alone.
Without being told, he knew V took it. Rika had kept dozens of those flowers in the garden.
They look like the sun, she had told him once, her expression a mixture of contempt and joy. It was always that way with her, a duality between light and dark, between sanity and madness. He still walked that tightrope but she had fallen off after V's death.
Out here in the woods, Saeren's pictures consisted mainly of weeds. Their roots gripped tightly to craggy cliffs and barren land. Even in nature, the ugly ones had to struggle to survive.
-x-
Saeran? Are you ok?
Another text, the exact same message as all the ones before. His brother would send at least one per hour. Abstractly, Saeran understood the sentiment—concern, worry. Love, probably.
He should reply. His fingers had already typed the text, hovering over the send button.
He should reply. But he looked up at the night sky, at the clouds hiding the moon, and deleted his response instead.
-x-
And this was something he could not tell his brother, something he had to keep secret: Saeran could not forgive. He could not forgive V for lying and Rika for her cruelty.
He could not forgive Saeyoung for leaving.
Everything had shattered with that first broken promise: I will stay.
-x-
And this was an uncomfortable truth, an ugly fact he knew no one would understand: Saeran could still feel the cool metal of the trigger, the sharp jolt of the gun as he took the shot. The gun went off like thunder and V collapsed every night in his dreams.
There was no pleasure in his death but there was no guilt, no remorse either.
-x-
No, he finally replied. His fingers shook after hitting send.
Less than two minutes later, a response: Me neither.
-x-
And this was the lie he told himself: I cannot forgive.
But he was tired, so tired of hating. Of the crushing weight of it all. There had to be space between mercy and punishment, a place where he didn't have to step backwards or move forwards.
-x-
On the last day of his trip, Saeran spotted a daffodil on the path. A sign of spring, its leaves were still faintly dusted with snow as it sprang out of the ground.
A small, unforgiving part of him wanted to step on it.
Instead, Saeran took out his camera and snapped a photo.